


Guiding Light

by edensgay (buckybarfs)



Category: Far Cry 5
Genre: Abuse, Alcoholism, Blood, Death in general, Demons, F/M, Gen, Ghosts, Kind of AU, Miscarriage mention, Murder, Other, Substance Abuse, The story of Joseph's life, a lot of warnings oh boy okay, cracks knuckles, death of a baby, it's all far cry 5 typical okay, joseph has a demon following him, the world ending, there isn't any romance sorry
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-28
Updated: 2018-07-28
Packaged: 2019-06-17 14:13:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,422
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15463179
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/buckybarfs/pseuds/edensgay
Summary: Joseph has only had two constant things in his life, the voice and his guiding light.





	Guiding Light

**Author's Note:**

> This is based off of an idea formed in the group chat. I’m pretty excited about this and am very happy about how easily it flowed, almost writing itself. Some ages and such were tweaked in this to make it work better, not sorry. Hope y’all enjoy, and yes, I’m working on actual requests.

Joseph is eight when it first happens, his father lie passed out drunk in his stained recliner, a plastic bottle of scotch clutched in his hands. He decides to go outside, Jacob is sitting on the porch in a rickety chair with a two year old John on his lap, bouncing the babbling toddler on his lap. He takes a seat on the front step of the porch, watching as two pieces of trash breeze down the street, imagining that they are racing.   
  
A boy from a few houses down who has parents not unlike theirs walks over and invites Joseph to play, Jacob nods his head and promises his brother that he will call him home before their father can notice he’s missing. When they get inside his house they head upstairs where the boy pulls out a ‘board’ game as he calls it, he stole it from his big sister who always plays it with her friends.   
  
Joseph learns the general gist, placing his fingers on the game piece like the boy tells him to, they ask questions and laugh at the answers, both of them happy about their new friend. When he hears a distant whistle he knows it’s time to go home, he gets up and trods downstairs, thanking the boys mother for having him over. She waves her cigarette in response as he quietly closes the front door, so he doesn’t wake up their Old Man who is asleep on the couch, a glass pipe and a spoon balancing on the edge of the coffee table beside him.  
  
He at first doesn’t notice the shadow following him home, it isn’t until it wraps its gray disfigured hand around his that he notices. Instead of submitting to fear like so many others, he smiles.  
  
The shadow is with him most of the time, his oldest brother doesn’t see it but sometimes baby John reaches his hands out to it and makes grabby motions. His new friend gives him advice when he asks and sometimes when he doesn’t. When his father is looking for a fight the friend whispers words to Joseph to use to calm his father, sometimes they work.   
  
When his father’s pack of smokes goes missing his friend whispers words to help Joseph through it as the belt repeatedly cuts through the scarred skin of his back. If his new friend was the one who hid the cigarettes, Joseph was none the wiser.  
  
The fateful day that Joseph is being beat on the front lawn, a trampled spiderman comic on the ground, his friend is lounging on the dead grass in front of him, watching through unclear eyes as Joseph bites his tongue and allows his father to punish him. Eventually the friend grows bored and wanders off, out of Joseph’s vision. Then, a sense of clarity fills Joseph’s eyes as a new voice whispers in his ear, a warmth enveloping him and making him feel whole for the first time.   
  
This new voice is deep, authoritative, setting all his cells ablaze as it whispers his future, that thus far his life has been a test to prove himself worthy.   
  
When his father grows bored and heads back inside, his hand aching to wrap around a bottle, Joseph lies on his side in the grass and looks up at the sky. As if he could see a face in the stars, whispering to him his future.  
  
He doesn’t, but his friend comes back. Its shadowy hands running up and down his back, the sting of its smokey fingers brushing his fresh wounds is strangely comforting.  
  
At night his older brother mumbles about killing their father, about all the ways he could free them. Joseph doesn’t see the shadow whispering in his brothers ear, encouraging his violent thoughts, telling him that is the only way.  
  
He doesn’t feel the shadow digging its claws into his shoulder as the police and Child Protective Services haul his parents away, he doesn’t hear how the shadow hisses in displeasure, upset at the lack of bloodshed. When a doctor asks about the scratches on his shoulder he shrugs and says they must be from his father because he doesn’t know where else they could have come from.  
  
His friend and the memory of the voice are the only things that get him through the next series of tests.   
  
When the doctors ask him questions he tells them about his friend and the voice, ignoring his friends pleas not to tell them. The doctors say they’re imaginary friends, a common coping method for children like him. He doesn’t point out the shadowy figure standing behind the doctor with the doll, knowing that they will not be able to see.  
  
His friend is so upset with him for being honest he doesn’t speak to him for a month.  
  
When he and his brothers find themselves placed with a new family, one that speaks in soft tones and promises larger than life his friend whispers in his ear that they are liars.  
  
His friend turns out to be right.   
  
The childish rasp of his friends voice whispers to him at night that this must be one of the tests the voice mentioned, making sure he is worthy. His friend is the only one who understands the voice, the only one who understands how important Joseph will come to be.  
  
On the night that Jacob woke John and Joseph and led them outside Joseph was too tired to notice the smokey hands that curled around his older brothers neck like a noose. His eyes were too heavy to notice the mechanical way Jacob’s hand lifted to pour the gasoline, as if it were being pulled by a puppet masters strings.  
  
He didn’t see the way the arms uncurled from his brothers neck, a familiar small hand wrapping around that of his teenage brothers, leading him towards the axe. He didn’t hear the whispering of the shadow as it encouraged Jacob to land blow after blow on their foster fathers head, and in the morning Jacob wouldn’t have heard it either. As he sat in the back of a patrol car he believed his actions to be his own, failing to notice the shadow that stepped over a dead man’s body to wrap itself around his younger brother once more.  
  
If the officers notice the fog in his eyes they don’t say anything, they assume that like so many others the teenager in their backseat has given into the siren call of drugs. After all, he’s a troubled boy.  
  
When John finds a home his friend tells him not to cry, one day he will find his family again. As he continues to ride the roller coaster of life alone, save for one shadowy figure, he meets new families who aren’t as awful as his first ones. But they aren’t his family, they don’t understand, when they see him praying at the side of his bed before he goes to sleep they pretend they don’t hear his pleas for another sign from the voice. They don’t see the hand on his shoulder, guiding him through what to say.  
  
When he became a man and was ready to live on his own his last foster mother who never quite got him and couldn’t be happier to have him out of her house gifted him with a rosary, telling him that God would always be with him. She didn’t know who his late night conversations were with, she didn’t see the tightening of the hand on his shoulder when the woman dare utter the name ‘God’.  
  
If her brakes were later cut by an unknown aggressor, it was an unfortunate coincidence.

It’s once he’s on his own that he meets her, his future wife. Their courtship is quick and to the point, she puts band-aids on the worst of his emotional wounds and they live happy together for a few years. She pulls him from the gutter and makes him into the man he’d dreamt of being as a child and soon she grows ripe with a baby of their own. 

It’s the family Joseph has always dreamed of and for once he feels like things are going his way. They were babies themselves, and he was scared to death, but she was so strong.  

Until his wife decided to visit one of her friends she hadn’t seen since college, the two agreeing to meet up at a nearby brunch spot. On the drive over his wife watched horrified as shadowed hands gripped her steering wheel and wrenched it towards oncoming traffic.

By the time he arrived at the hospital his wife was gone, a little pink bundle of joy laid out, the hospital staff both congratulating him and apologizing for his lost. It felt surreal, and in that moment he was weak, sending out a silent prayer for guidance.

He found strength in the shape of smokey hands, showing him what he needed to do to be strong.

He visited his old home, or where it used to be. Looking for any semblance of family, something to replace the void he felt inside. A comforting whisper in his ear promising that he would find his brothers as he stood on the sidewalk in front of the new shopping center, his eyes closed as he asked the voice for guidance once more.  
  
His friend whispered that there was no place for him here, his existence here had been a mere spec a lifetime ago. He would have better luck somewhere else.  
  
When he got fired from his job as a dancing monkey pushing a button in an elevator his friend reassured him that he was following the right path, that he would soon find his brothers once more. He needed to regroup and try a different approach.   
  
If his boss later fell down an elevator shaft that sat open for maintenance it was because he was drunk, not because anything had pushed him.  
  
Joseph sought religion, reading every text he could. Most of the time his friend was absent, sneering at the books of God he held. Sometimes he would feel breath by his ear as his friend leaned over his shoulder, reading a certain passage or a certain book of a different denomination.   
  
One thing stood out, the people who were the Chosen few were the loneliest of the bunch, those most in need of a family. This only spurred him on, further cementing his goal. His friend took a backseat, becoming near silent over the next few months.  
  
He searched far and wide for his big brother, someone he held such fond memories of. But to no avail, he found himself frustrated and lost. Quickly losing hope in the voice, losing hope in its promise. His friend started to talk to him more and more, asking him not to lose faith in the voice, reminding him of his destiny.  
  
At his friends suggestion he went after John.  
  
One day on his trek to the local library he passed by a small shop with signs promising that with a glance at your hand the woman could tell your future. The small woman stood hunched over in front of the door, fumbling to put the key in the lock. When Joseph passed she froze, every hair on her body standing up on end as the young man continued down the street. Joseph was too busy keeping an eye on traffic to notice how the small shadow of his friend turned around and stuck its tongue out at the woman.  
  
If the woman’s heart stopped right then and there Joseph was confident in knowing he had never seen her before in his life.  
  
When he started his job at the psychiatric facility he felt strangely at home, the so called ‘crazy people’ in these walls were more sane than those he saw on the outside. Sometimes his friend would wander the halls alone, speaking to the residents who could see him as clearly as Joseph could.   
  
Joseph would chat with the patients, finding comfort in people that understood him, the fact that they were people society deemed to dangerous to be on their own meant little to him. For once in his life he had found acceptance, he could speak somewhat freely without worries of repercussions.   
  
He spoke less of the voice, still wary of its silence. It had been so long and despite his friends encouragement he still doubted it. The voice had given him life and it had taken it from him, it had taken everything from him in order to gift him with divine purpose.  
  
When he was being used as a punching bag in a back alley by three men just as down on their luck as he, he cursed the voice. Cursed what it spoke for and what few words it had spoken to him. He was so caught up in his own torment that he failed to notice the haze in the eyes of his attackers, even if he had noticed he would have summed it up to drug usage.   
  
Then he saw, his eyes were open and he found himself in a different world, shown the future, their future, his future. He saw destruction, he did not see how it ended but he saw how it began. When the vision ended and he was still on the street on his knees with blood dripping from his face, a man standing before him with suddenly wide and clear eyes, his fist half cocked. The men left, mumbling something about doing him a favor.   
  
Little did they know they had just killed Joseph Seed, being the first to bear witness to the birth of the Father.  
  
At the hospital his friend excitedly whispered in his ear, discussing what the voice had shown him. As soon as the nurses were out of earshot he murmured a thank you to his friend for keeping the voice alive, for without the shadowed figure he’d met as a boy he wouldn’t have kept his faith for this long.  
  
His friend whispered to him to quit his job, he had known spread his wings and outgrown the sterile walls. His fulltime job was now finding his brothers.   
  
John was first, the name John Duncan was unfamiliar to Joseph but at the sound of it his friend almost sang in excitement. When a blue eyed man in a crisp suit came out into the lobby he had to fight the urge to fall to his knees and praise the voice for leading him here. Instead, he and his brother shuffled back into John’s office where they fell into each other’s arms and reconnected.  
  
Joseph’s friend stood in the corner, watching with a smile too large and toothy for its small face as the brothers hugged each other and Joseph explained their glorious destiny. The corpse of John Duncan left behind that office, never to seen again as the two brothers left the building together, leaving the bright lights of Atlanta behind as they began their search for Jacob.  
  
With the help of the youngest Seed Jacob was almost too easy to find, curled up and shouting the only names he cared to remember. Beneath the filth he was hardly recognizable as the man they had looked up to growing up, but that didn’t matter to them.   
  
Now that they were together once more their journey could finally begin.  
  
The Jacob they pulled out of the shelter was a shell of himself, as much a shadow as the friend Joseph had relied upon so heavily for his entire life. Joseph spent days explaining their destiny, breathing new purpose into his brother. This new Jacob was not the same one they had known as children, then again none of them were the same, time had not treated the Seed boys well.   
  
The brothers started their first home of worship, a united front as they recruited their Chosen for the end.   
  
When sinners who couldn’t find redemption came in through their doors they sent them packing, some accepting it and others leaving with harsh words. John chose who was worthy of hearing his older brothers word, Jacob kept those who weren’t out.  
  
If one of the unworthy men disappeared after their shunning it was a coincidence, until it wasn’t.  
  
As the group made their way to Hope County, Montana his friend once more made himself scarce, only speaking up when Joseph found himself lost or having a moment of doubt. At times Joseph missed his friend, but he was mostly preoccupied with his flock, his new family. The family the voice and his friend had promised him.  
  
When Joseph preached on the roof of his bus few listened, aside from those whose emptiness resonated with his words, and the few who found themselves guided by plumes of smoke shaped like hands.   
  
They settled into Hope County, the locals wary but accepting of the strange commune. It was then that his friend spoke up once more, reminding him of a memory long forgotten. A whisper from their mother, spoken quietly as she lit their fathers cigarette. A sister. Jacob covering his ears as they sat in their shared room, their father screaming at their mother in the hall. The sound of a body falling downstairs, Joseph and Jacob wincing at every thump. After that, no further mention of a sister.  
  
Wouldn’t it be nice to have the sister promised to them? His friend asked.  
  
They went through several possible sisters, his friend whispering disapproval in his ear, the girls were too pure, too full of light. They couldn’t possibly assimilate and understand their mission, they disposed of the girls and replaced time after time until the right one came along.  
  
He didn’t know that what had appealed to his friend was the heavy cloud of darkness that hung over the young woman’s head, her friend growing up similar to his. Only hers had been in the form of powders, crystals and brief moments of relief, his in shadowed hands and whispers of a future.  
  
They live in peace for years, his friend once more disappearing for the most part. Save for whispers of encouragement, leading him down his path. The Father has grown into his purpose and amassed a large flock to bring to the new Eden with him.  
  
But a flock that large attracts unwanted attention.  
  
A video of him punishing a sinner goes viral and their flock is not longer safe, but this time they cannot run, they have sunk their claws into the Montana dirt and they will not leave. What people do not see in the video is the shadow whispering encouragement into his ear, the guiding of shadowed hands as he dealt the punishment.  
  
Joseph is the only one who sees, his friend has only ever let others see on rare occasions, none of them seeing it as clearly as he and none of them understanding it like he. His friend has been his guiding light through it all, a reminder of his faith.  
  
When hell steps through the front door of his church, disrupting everything he has worked so hard to protect, bringing the end he foresaw all those years ago their eyes roam the expanse of the building. Watching as his siblings gravitate towards him, putting up a united front. His friend stands behind him, a tiny hand clutching his pant leg, they don’t see.  
  
Then it grows in size, until it’s towering behind the Father, the shape of a child contorting into something ugly as it leans down and whispers in his ear. It’s sharp teeth glinting in the moonlight streaming through cross shaped windows, it’s long tongue lolling out the side of its mouth like a dog. A clawed hand resting on the shoulder of the father, it’s voice the sound of the devils violin as it whispers to Joseph, his words echoing the creatures, a sinister song played in the quiet of the halls of a so called prophet.  
  
Then, their eyes light up with fear and suddenly, they do see. They see more than Joseph has ever seen, they see the truth.  
  
If at the end of it all when his prophecy proved true, when ash rained down on the land and a plume of smoke rose from the scorched ground and a familiar shadowy figure emerged the flames dancing in the ruins of a world on fire, well, that was a coincidence.

**Author's Note:**

> Please leave feedback, it inspires me to keep going. Kudos are much loved but comments earn you a small piece of my soul.


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